Sport
13 January, 2026
SUMMER READING Champion of many titles
The Loddon Herald’s Gary Walsh sits down with golfing legend Andrew Kane whose name appears on cups, shields and trophies around the state
FOR A maths teacher, Andrew Kane can struggle with figures.
He’s sitting in the clubhouse at Boort Golf Club – a sort of shrine to his incredible feats over more than 40 years – trying to work out how old he was when he first played in the Country Week championships.
Eventually he settles on having been just 15 the first time he represented Kara Kara Golf Association in 1983.
It was the start of a long and successful career in golf that has included beating Robert Allenby, who would go on to win four titles on the US PGA Tour, by a shot in a tournament at Ouyen in 1990.
It’s a journey that ranges from giving golf lessons at a putt-putt golf course above a Melbourne car park and helping multi-millionaire racehorse owner/trainer Lloyd Williams at one of Australia’s most exclusive clubs, to finishing square with six-time PGA Tour winner Mark Leishman in a Country Week tournament at Werribee Park.
Leishman, by the way, has career earnings of $US66 million.
And there is the heartbreaking reality of twice narrowly missing his Australian professional tour card – by a single shot in 2009 and two shots a year later.
Kane, now 57, shakes his head in regret but accepts the reality of a life chasing a golfing dream.
“A bit unlucky in some ways, but the sign was that even if it had gone the other way and I’d qualified by a shot, I would have been at the bottom of the pile and belting my head against the wall trying to make money,” he says.
“If you don’t finish in the top two or three at the school, you’re just treading water all the time.
“So, I thought I’ve had my go, and I got that out of my system.”
To dismiss Kane as a golf journeyman would be brutally unfair.
He has won state titles, 17 club championships at Boort and 12 regional Champion of Champions titles, played pennant for Peninsula Golf Club on the great sand-belt courses of Melbourne, holds course records and has hit five holes-in-one.
Kane has also forged a career as a teacher, qualifying at Melbourne University while still hoping to make a living from golf.
The year after his second failure to win his tour card, he had a car accident at St Arnaud when returning from Country Week and snapped his right leg in two places.
Kane had surgery and was in a moon boot for three months but got a medical certificate allowing him to use a golf cart in tournaments and somehow won the state par three championship at Kyabram, only nine months after the crash.
It was a remarkable triumph of resilience.
Kane first took up golf at the age of 10, whacking balls around the expansive front yard of the family farm at Barraport.
Like most country kids, he played cricket in the summer and footy in the winter, but he also worked on his golf, first getting picked in that Country Week team in 1983 at 15 years of age.
“The first three years I didn’t win a match, didn’t do any good at all,” Kane says.
“Then, when I got to uni and I was 18, I won every match.”
In his second year at university, aged 19, he won the state sand greens championships, played at Boort, with his career ambitions already set.
In 1990 he won the same Victorian title, and a year later took up a three-year golf pro apprenticeship, initially at Werribee Park and then at the exclusive National Golf Club at Cape Schanck.
Kane’s time was spent repairing clubs, doing retail work at the pro shop selling balls and tees, studying small business, coaching and golf rules, as well as playing in weekly “trainee tournaments”.
At The National, he interacted with casino boss Lloyd Williams – “He gave me a $100 tip just for helping him out”- another racing luminary in David Hains, stars from ‘Hey Hey It’s Saturday’ and a swag of famous footballers and media identities.
Then, after graduating, it was a matter of trying to get an assistant pro job at a club.
Kane explored taking a coaching role at a driving range in Singapore but quickly became homesick.
On returning to Melbourne, he helped a mate with his mini-golf course in the city, giving lessons in the driving nets, making milk shakes and serving customers having a putt during their lunch break.
It wasn’t really what Kane was after, so six months later he took up a pro role at Mildura Golf Club.
“The first six months were ok, but after a year, I actually got bored, sitting in the pro shop doing nothing – dusting, cleaning, vacuuming, selling balls, saying the same things over and over again,” he says.
So, he returned to teaching and has continued to combine that career with his golfing exploits ever since.
Kane plays off plus-one but has been plus-five on some occasions at Boort.
He lists his strengths as his accuracy and ability to create shots when in bad lies.
The walls of the Boort golf club are festooned with honour boards weighed down by the Kane name – his father and mother also have won club championships.
He has won titles aged 19 and aged 57 – last Sunday when he took out his umpteenth Kara Kara Champion and Champions prize.
Just one thing gnaws at him.
“I was a bit disappointed that I never got coached when I was young,” Kane says.
“My swing is pretty solid but there’s a few flaws there that someone could have picked up – and I might have been better.”
In the end, Kane resorts to counting up the wins from the honour boards that line the walls; honour boards that also feature his parents’ names.